Live a kind and more meaningful life.

As we sit here reflecting on the year that’s been, and contemplating what we project for the year ahead, I’m sitting here thinking about what could be done right here and right now.

Rather than listing and crossing off all the things I set about to do this year, an activity I generally do for validation I’ve achieved something, as well as making a list of all the things I must do next year to compensate for what I didn’t do in order to make next year better than the last, I realise how meaningless it all is. Each year is what it is. Why do we use a new year to ignite change? Do our goals/resolutions bring about positive change for the greater community or only ourselves? And more importantly what is so bad about where we are, and what we are doing right now?

From the moment we are born, we view what we see based on our conditioning and beliefs. Each mind will interpret a set of circumstances by what it already knows or believes to be true, based on experience from our past, what we have learnt from our family, our society, our teachers and our friends. In order for us to have a greater acceptance of ourselves, of others, of opinions and ideas of how life should be, we must first learn to understand that every individual will have a “separate reality” and in knowing that, we must be able to appreciate that there may be more than one truth possible, depending on the eyes it is seen through.

For most, a New Year resolution entails giving up, or omitting something from ones life. No more smoking, less drinking, no coffee, less food. For others it’s taking away and replacing things we enjoy, because of how harmfully we perceive ourselves; We’ll engage in exercise we may not enjoy and diets that are neither sustainable or good for us. For others, the emphasis is on obtaining what we don’t have; a new car, a new house, babies, getting married and an exuberant holiday, all because the people around us have or enjoy these things. Whilst some of these goals can influence positive change, we must look at where they stem from, is it because we are honouring what “we want” or is it based on a perception of what “we should have”?

How often have you heard someone start the year with:

“ This year was terrible, next year is my year and it has big things installed for me”. Whilst I admire how optimistic we all are as the clock counts down, I think it would be more mind blowing if we were all a little more realistic.

The truth is, each year of life is merely just the same as the last. Life is like the ocean, it moves in waves and tides, it is rich with variety, and beauty, and it is also filled with violence and sadness. We can either get caught up in the detail or we can shift our beliefs and just be with and in acceptance of its various rhythms rather than fighting them.

In yogic philosophy, Patanjali created a set of guidelines to help everyone live a kind and more meaningful life. They encompassed ethical practices or restraints that pertain to the way one interacts with the world, allowing for us to exist and coexist harmoniously with others and ourselves. Simple, achievable practices that can be done at anytime and any day, you don’t need to wait till a whole year rolls around to start, you don’t need to tick them off as you start adopting them, just continue to practice until these new beliefs become ingrained in to who you are, any change is good change. I’ll leave you in 2016 with an activity of self-enquiry; here you can explore the Yama’s, see if they resonate with you, or perhaps start to see something from a different perspective in the new year to come.

So put down the goal list for 2017, smile about all the things you did great this year and laugh about all the things that weren’t quite what you anticipated, because if you always take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of life!